


arms open, hearts closed

by greatwonfidence



Category: Moral Orel
Genre: 4-5 years after the finale, vaguely suicidal feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 13:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13124283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greatwonfidence/pseuds/greatwonfidence
Summary: things have changed and orel is unhappy.





	arms open, hearts closed

The boy slips through the wooden doors, wincing at the long creak that echoes in the dark church. His footsteps reverberate, but there is no one around to catch him, he knows. He takes his usual place - third row from the front, all the way to the right, with his elbow propped up - so that when the moon phases through the stained glass he’s aglow with blues and yellows, and he feels God in that light, thanking him for coming to the late sermon.

 Like midnight shows at the clubs downtown he’s not allowed to go to, it starts suddenly; a mouse squeaks by the podium and promptly scurries away, like it has only just noticed its visitor, solely comfortable preaching to an empty church. But Orel has made sure to be in attendance every night. Someone has to, after all. 

He closes his eyes, basking in the warmth of himself, the living painting he’s become. He isn’t stupid, despite what his teachers might say. He knows full well Reverend Putty has no intention of returning to Moralton. But even now, four years after his last sermon, he can hear the man’s voice echoing between these walls. He can hear Putty welcoming the truants and the nomads, the runaways and the leaders that were raised as followers. Unfortunately, Moralton was the way it was, with an unchanging community. _(Nobody really changed,_ Orel had decided, _it just so happened that everyone’s true colors showed at once.)_ Putty wanted it to be something it wasn’t ready to become, and for that he had to leave. People stepped up, but nobody could quite fill his shoes, and eventually they stopped trying to. Orel replays what he can remember in his mind, but every night it gets harder. He wishes his mother would bring him to another church, but he doesn’t dare ask. He prays from home and then here, his second home, all under the watchful gaze of God.

_He doesn’t care where you pray from,_ his mother had said, when he did dare ask. _Just that you do. And even then…_

Orel leaves the church as quietly as he’d come. It is something of a walk between there and his house, but he doesn’t mind. He thinks of car rides every Sunday. The car ride home the night his parents split up for good. His thoughts tend to fall back on that, like a safety net. The utter silence, the horrid tension, the worry that any moment his father would do something dangerous. He remembers staring at the moon the whole ride across town, remembers being young and knowing that the moon was just making sure he got home safely. The moon still follows him, but he doesn’t watch it back anymore, doesn’t acknowledge it.

Orel pulls a paperboard box out of his jacket pocket and takes out a single cigarette. He shivers, fumbling with his small yellow lighter. Doughy’s voice rings in his mind, clearer than the Reverend’s, that _smoking is bad, Orel, you’re going to get cancer!_ but God, he could not care less at this point. He supposes that might be part of the reason that Doughy doesn’t speak to him anymore. Neither does Christina. Or Joe. Or Tommy. Or-

Nobody speaks to him anymore. Orel is sixteen and he is so alone. He wants to believe it isn’t his fault, that it’s just what happens when you get older. People come and go - he knows that. But it’s unfortunately easy to feel targeted when people only go, when it’s all give and no take. _And everyone in Moralton is a heathen, anyways,_ he thinks bitterly.

He finally manages to light the cigarette and takes a long drag. He still limps when he walks. It’s a constant reminder of the first time that he looked into his father’s eyes and saw the monster wake up. A constant reminder of the evil lurking in the man he trusted and loved and believed in with his whole heart. A constant reminder that that same evil is swimming in his veins, right now, dormant, patiently waiting to be loosed. He’d resolved, long ago, to fight with all his being against that monster when the time comes. But he thinks that maybe his father did the same, once, and look where that got him. A total lack of custody and a one-bedroom apartment.

It does him no good to think on these things, but he does regardless. He zips up his jacket as he walks on. It snowed quite a bit more while he was worshipping (which idol, how false, he can’t be sure), and now he trudges in white up to his ankles. The water seeps into his shoes and his socks cling to his pale skin. Is that smoke or his breath? It doesn’t matter. He drops the cigarette in a snowbank - littering is a sin, probably, but God will understand.

It’s Thursday and Orel has school tomorrow. He'll have to make sure Shapey and Block wake up and are dressed before their bus comes. It’s already nearly midnight when he sits down in the snow, weakened lungs in need of rest. Across the street the too-familiar neon sign flickers, advertising that the bar is still open. He thinks of Reverend Putty’s words, about keeping one’s arms open for the wandering and pitiable, and he starts to wonder if Putty was really thinking of the church in that moment after all. Maybe it’s only what he himself was seeking. He had to understand that he wouldn’t find it here.

_There’s nothing at all to be found here,_ Orel thinks. He lays down on his back, arms open, and watches the snow fall. He imagines the flakes are lost souls he can welcome into his heart. But as his shivering lessens, he worries his heart has become overgrown with brambles and the spirits can’t fight through the thorns. He doesn’t feel any desire to wipe the melted flakes off his face, let alone to push himself up off the pavement and get home. Maybe his mother could get the kids ready for school in the morning, he thinks, closing his eyes and losing himself to the stillness of the world. He’s cradled by the buzzing sounds from the bar and the feeling of cold, and after a while both of those fade away and he just feels nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> i binged the whole series last month and it still hurts a lot. wanted to write something sad. thanks for reading. xoxo


End file.
